Control arm fail

[ryanjl]

My LR4 is on its 3rd set, done at least once by the previous owner and evident from the copper grease on all the bolts when I removed them. The bushings on both sides were all cracked, the inserts are useless. Makes me wonder whey they didn’t go with a solid rubber design.

Third set of rear uppers? How many miles on your LR4? Any idea what mileage they were done at?

 

[txfromwi]

As you know I have 3 LR4's, 90K, 60K, 40K.
No issues with rear control arms - at least that I know.
What at the diagnostic symptoms.

Maybe I just don't recognize the problem...

 

[ryanjl]

No idea what the exact driving symptoms are of a bad rear control arm. I can imagine it may be a clunk or some looseness in the rear. In the videos I've seen with "bad" upper control arm bushings, they have the wheel off and they demonstrate obvious play around the bushing. Apparently, one of the bushings in the rear is fluid-filled like the rear LCA bushing in the front.

 

[Rover Range]

Third set of rear uppers? How many miles on your LR4? Any idea what mileage they were done at?

Definitely not normal, considering that the upper control arms are just along for the ride. No real stress on them.

 

[ugmw177]

replaced my front LCAs about 10k miles ago (around 90k miles on the clock). The uppers front and rear look basically new. there must be another problem your disco has that is causing the wear on the UCAs

 

[CPalacay]

I agree, definitely not normal from what I’ve read on here. I picked up the LR4 last January with 112K miles. Sometime in March it developed a clunk in the front end which I self diagnosed as a control arm bushing. Me being me, I decided it was due for a COMPLETE suspension refresh front and rear.

 

[ryanjl]

replaced my front LCAs about 10k miles ago (around 90k miles on the clock). The uppers front and rear look basically new. there must be another problem your disco has that is causing the wear on the UCAs

No other symptom. I get annual alignments, but do go offroad a bit. Some potholes in Kansas City, but nothing too bad compared to a lot of towns.

I had just bought front uppers thinking they were probably due with my LR4 having 133k miles on it. Had my indy do them at the same time as he was doing my lowers. For all I knew, they didn't need to be done. Wasn't until they were out and on the ground that my indy could tell the bushings were worn.

 

[txfromwi]

OK, question, front UCA symptoms?

We have a mystery shimmy when braking on the 2016,it's not warped rotors and it seems very strangely reminiscent of what the Isuzu Trooper used to do - (that shimmy kinda came and went, never was resolved, kinda sorta related to dirt levels and dust on the rotors), kinda maybe started when my daughter hit the gas instead of the brake and smacked a curb (if the LR4 is that fragile then there is a problem - this was no big deal).

Could UCA issues cause a come and go, low level shimmy when braking?? Always seems to the from the passenger side...

 

[16FujiDisco]

@txfromwi yep, that was one of the symptoms I had

 

[ryanjl]

Hard to say if I had any symptoms because I went from poly LCA bushings to rubber ones at the same time.

Come to think of it, the stiffer poly bushings in my LCAs could be why my rubber UCA bushings went bad.